Saturn 3 (1980)

It's hard to imagine a more peculiar choice of director for this sci-fi thriller than Stanley Donen. Donen made some great films in the 50s and 60s (Singin' In The Rain, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Charade), but here he's in disappointing form. Partly that may be due to the fact that the project was originally to be directed by John Barry, but Donen "inherited" the responsibility when Barry quit due to ill health. However, Donen should not be made to shoulder all the blame. The script by Martin Amis leaves the actors to contend with some bad lines and situations. Elmer Bernstein contributes a forgettable music score which is well below his usual standard. And even the actors - all of them talented - seem indifferent to the project. Kirk Douglas, for example, seems to have accepted the role simply to enjoy some saucy nude scenes with sexy co-star Farrah Fawcett.

Essentially, the story is a three-handed thriller (or, four-handed, if you count Hector the droid). Saturn 3 is Titan, the third moon of Saturn (hence the name), and it is here that scientists Adam and Alex (Douglas and Fawcett) live in blissful isolation, developing food supplies for people on Earth. Adam and Alex not only work together - they sleep and shower together too, which is a pretty enviable arrangement for Adam (who is about 30 years older than his sexy assistant). Into this perfect space oasis comes psychopathic Benson (Harvey Keitel), another scientist who has recently murdered a shuttle captain. Benson has brought with him a droid named Hector, supposedly to speed up the workload. However, Hector turns out to be a particularly unstable droid, particularly when the randy robot develops a liking toward Alex. Eventually it becomes clear that neither Adam nor Benson can control the droid, and with Hector determined to kill anyone who stands in the way of himself and Alex, that becomes something of a problem.......

If Saturn 3 is a story of jealousy and desire, then it needs more than a sex-starved droid to generate credibility. If it is a sci-fi actioner, then it needs more action. If it was conceived as a sci-fi thriller then it most assuredly needs more thrills. The film emerges as a rather muddled and unappealing mess, with flashes of eroticism and very sporadic flashes of action. It marks a low point in Donen's directorial career, and is too forgettable to be remembered as a significant sci-fi work. Most of the folks associated with this one probably don't give it pride of place on their CVs.

Fmovies: All right -- first off, I'm going to recommend that you see this, even if just to satisfy your own curiosity (which I'm presuming on your behalf, I suppose). My own curiosity stems from the fact that Martin Amis was the screenwriter here. For those who don't know, Amis is the gold standard for modern literary fiction (although more recently, he has been off-form, c.f. the horrendous "Yellow Dog"). His narrative prose is too often described as "Mandarin"; that is, erudite, rife with classical allusion, and thoroughgoing familiarity with the major English writers and poets (particularly and most importantly Milton, whose "Paradise Lost" he basically cannibalizes for the plot and much of the language of his "The Information", and also P.G. Wodehouse, whose prose style his is most akin to). Amis, the son of novelist Kingsley Amis, claims to have read nothing but comic books as a boy.

There's nothing overtly Amis-ian about the dialogue itself -- one or two stillborn jokes about Saturn being the "place where they would insert the tube if the solar system needed an enema" (which sounds like the astro-physics stuff from The Info or London Fields, where sodomy is talked about in terms of "black holes," and Nicola herself is a "black hole of sex", right?). There are "erudite" elements like classical references to the Roman god Saturn (at least in the title itself, and not really developed in the screenplay) and naming of the robot "Hector", of "the Demigod III series" (one of the characters constantly reminds us of Hector's bad treatment at the hands of Achilles, to wit, "Hector's body was dragged around the walls of Troy by Achilles").

The acting by Douglas and Fawcett is just unbelievably bad. No way to get around it. As I think back on it, the screenplay may have been pretty good actually, but their delivery was ruining it, every time. Douglas's big, hammy face and shoulders filling up the screen and stepping all over what may have been witty little bits here and there. He was badly, badly mis-cast in this one -- it should've been someone like Jack Lemmon or Kevin Spacey. Farrah Fawcett (earning her paycheck as a set decoration, basically) was perfectly cast, in light of the fact that this is basically an "Adam and Eve In Space" story. Amis's females (c.f. "Other People," or "Success") tend to take Milton's Eve as their model.

Now, if the execution, in terms of acting or staging what-have-you, didn't come off, the overall structure of the thing was anagogically sound. There's no question that Amis's novelist's sense of architecture was at its high ebb at this part of his career (the contemporaneous book would be "Success", Amis's most cleanly and cleverly plotted). As I said, it's basically Adam and Eve "in space," and the ending, as with our first parents, is not a happy one.

Harvey Keitel is the intruder on Douglas's and Fawcett's Eden. And what's interesting is that his character is a forebear of the "Devil" character in Amis's later novel, "The Information", Scozzy. Keitel's character is, like Scozzy, a sort of cyborg, a series of pixellated surfaces, motivated only by desire for Fawcett. By the end of the movie, his person merges with the robot Hector.

The movie's coda was surprisingly strong, actually, almost unwarrantedly

Would-be foreboding sci-fi looks all shiny and new, like a futuristic department store. Three good actors (Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel) come off looking like incompetent dummies in this derivative, cardboard cartoon. When Keitel arrives at the space station of lovers Douglas and Fawcett, he is carrying a strange metal container. Douglas offers to carry it for him and Keitel answers, "NOOOOOOOO!" in a hilariously chilly manner that makes even Richard Burton's overacting seem tame by comparison. Poor Kirk and Farrah even strip down for this one (so much for the classy reputation of vet director Stanley Donen). There is a neat scene where robotic Hector takes a splinter from Farrah's eye, but her reaction afterward (rubbing it like a child and sticking her bottom lip out) is embarrassing. This is one step beyond, all right. It's so far out it's brain-dead. *1/2 from ****

Saturn 3 fmovies. Right. Saturn 3 is one of those films that always seems to divide reviewers into the two old and trustworthy camps: "what a great picture" and "who the heck let this pile of manure be made?" And then, it has the ability to have a solid middle ground; the "nyah...not bad..." crowd. I have to say that I fall into this latter group. I first saw Saturn 3 when I was a teenager and was gripped by it. I remember thinking how cool Hector looked and the fact that he was also downright creepy. In the years before seeing The Terminator Hector, for me, was the archetypal maniac machine that will stop at nothing to kill you in a (probably) gruesome way. Okay, the film's saving graces: the overall design of the sets and costumes. Ignoring the rather bleak look of the corridors, the Saturn 3 station has that feeling of being futuristic but also familiar in a Holiday Inn-sort of way, and the launching area at the film's beginning, with that great big flaming hole image effectively acting as a rather cool backdrop. Benson's (and also James') space suits are very nicely done. They give off the distinct air of practicality, like a hyper-modern air force pressure suit, and also a sense of impersonality about them which becomes menacing with the addition of the dark face plated helmets. Adam and Alex's work-out gear, however, is very dated and it's also quite excruciating to watch their exercise routine. The ships aren't Star Wars Star Destroyers, but then they're not meant to be. The way I look at it, they were designed to look slightly other worldly and also practical. Benson's pod that he flies to Saturn 3 looks entirely functional and although it appears rather clunky and distinctly un-aerodynamic, it's worth remembering that in space there isn't any wind resistance so sleek lines aren't necessary. Unfortunately, because this was a full-sized prop for the actors to interact with the other ships do look like the models they are. Hector is a piece of design excellence. For a start, the actual costume is made from metal, instantly rendering the appearance of a real robot. The actual laboured gait and measured way of moving employed by the actor playing Hector (probably due to the considerable weight of the suit) is instrumental in convincing the viewer of his cybernetic credentials. What helps is that we see Hector being constructed and that can block out any ideas of the "man in a suit" mold, particularly in regards to the insertion of the brain tissue into (effectively) the torso of the costume. Finally, Harvey Keitel. His performance in this film is derided by many as being too over the top and hammy but I think that he actually saw the script for what it really was - eighty-odd minutes of comic-book fun. He had a ball with the Benson character and it's quite obvious that he knew he wasn't asked to do Shakespeare and play it straight. Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett are a let down to be sure. It's evident that Kirk's entering his dotage and the idea of him being an action hero and hot stud when he's the same age as most of the audience's grandfathers is frankly ludicrous. And showing your sagging butt, Kirk? Should've kept those training suit bottoms on. Farrah does play Alex well when she's there to look good, but any semblance of the idea that she's a research scientist just doesn't compute. The film in itself is a bit of a hit and miss affair. It aims to be a sophisticated sci-fi thriller like Alien but the casting of Doug

There's no point whining about what 'Saturn 3' COULD have been with a script by Martin Amis, direction by Stanley Donen ('Bedazzled'), and the star power of Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel. It is what it is, and that is, despite the impressive production values, basically a throw back to a fifties b-grade monster movie. Hector is still one of the scariest movie robots of all time, even if the idea of a sex-crazed machine is a trifle ludicrous and reminiscent of all those horny BEMs on pulp magazine covers and silly flicks like 'The Brain From Planet Arous'. Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas ('Spartacus') must have been in his early 60s when this was made but still exudes charisma and virility. 1970s sex symbol Farrah Fawcett ('Logan's Run') is less convincing as his love interest and is, let's face it, little more than eye candy. Keitel must have been wondering just how he ended up in this silliness so soon after his excellent work in 'Blue Collar' and 'Fingers', but he is creepy enough, though apparently dubbed. I also got a kick out of the very brief cameo by Ed Bishop, star of 1970s cult classic SF series 'UFO'. All in all, an unambitious but generally effective thriller, which has a few dull spots but enough scares to make it some cheesy fun. Just don't expect too much and you will enjoy it all the more.

The talent working on this film should have meant the end product was a lot more coherent than it actually was.John Barry who was involved with a story credit but was production designer for Star Wars and Superman must have had a big hand in the set design for this film as it looks incredible.The sets are so good they are a character in themselves and lend effectively to creating a sense of isolation.The sets remind me of Alien,yes they are that good which would be testament to the brilliance of Barry.Its a shame then that the rest of the film is rarther poor.It shows glimpses of promise but seems to falter just as its picking up.An expressionless Harvey Kietel seems dubbed and gave a physically hollow performance alongside an energetic Kirk Douglas and an airhead Farrah Fawcett.The visual effects are actually OK but the film seems to be missing big chunks and i get the feeling there's a version out there on the cutting room floor that is actually a lot better than what we have here.This film could probably be remade quite successfully,it has a great premise and is lacking a quality director to see it through. 6/10